Beginner II Yiddish (Sunday Morning)

Tuition: $480 | YIVO members: $375**
Students: $240 (Must register with valid university email address)

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This is a live, online course held weekly on Zoom. Enrollment will be capped at about 15 students. All course details (Zoom link, syllabus, handouts, assignments, etc.) will be posted to Canvas. Students will be granted access to the class on Canvas after registering for the class here on the YIVO website. This class will be conducted in Yiddish and English.

Instructor: Malena Chinski

Who should take this course?
This course is appropriate for those who have completed Beginner I Yiddish or equivalent coursework.

What topics will this class cover?
Drawing on a communicative approach, this class will build on the language background acquired in Beginner I Yiddish. This semester, we will cover Chapters 4-7 of In eynem. New communication goals and vocabulary will include describing objects, giving commands and advice, talking about studies and professions, and discussing presence and absence. New grammatical topics will address plural nouns, the diminutive, the imperative, negative statements, an introduction to verbs with separable prefixes, the basic form of the adjective, and possessive adjectives. We will also train separately each of the four language skills: reading, writing, speaking, and listening. The class will approach Shabbos, Jewish holidays that fall during the semester, and Yiddish culture more broadly.

Is knowledge of the Yiddish alphabet required?
Yes, knowledge of the Yiddish alphabet is required.

Course Materials:
This course will use the textbook In eynem: The New Yiddish Textbook, Vol I & II by Asya Vaisman Schulman, Jordan Brown, Mikhl Yashinsky (Purchase).

Malena Chinski is PhD in Social Sciences from the National University of General Sarmiento, in Argentina. Her doctoral dissertation addressed Shoah commemoration within the Jewish community of Buenos Aires during the first postwar decade. She completed a postdoctoral stay in France at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales with support from the Fondation pour la mémoire de la Shoah. Her current research addresses the reconstruction of Yiddish culture in Paris in the immediate postwar period, the itineraries of surviving Yiddish writers and scholars from Eastern Europe, and memories of the Shoah in the Parisian Yiddish press. She has published research articles in various specialized journals and collective volumes and co-edited with Alan Astro the collective volume Splendor, Decline, and Rediscovery of Yiddish in Latin America (Leiden, Brill, 2018).

Malena learned Yiddish at the IWO Foundation of Buenos Aires with Ester Szwarc and Avrom Lichtenbaum. She has taught beginner and intermediate classes at the University Paris-Sorbonne (Paris IV) and in the Summer Program for Yiddish Language and Literature in Berlin and Paris. Currently, she teaches regular Yiddish classes within the virtual programs of YIVO and in-person classes at the Maison de la culture yiddish.

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